Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
It’s important to disclose information through ERISA-required documents properly: it can be a plan administrator’s last line of defense if participants allege that they suffered losses because they didn’t know their rights or important plan terms. That obligation has grown in response to the financial scandals of the last decade (Enron, WorldCom, mortgage-leveraged bonds, etc.). […]
Done right, a solid job descriptions program can bring your company structure and efficiency. Here’s how to get the benefits, while avoiding most of the costs. A recent Advisor article stated the views of an author who believes that job descriptions should be eliminated in preference to having a program that’s poorly done. A haphazardly-built […]
by Jonathan C. Sterling On March 27, Governor Dannel Malloy signed a law that will increase Connecticut’s minimum wage in each of the next three years. The minimum wage will rise to $10.10 per hour in 2017. You may remember that just last year, a law was passed to increase the minimum wage to $8.70 […]
IBM will pay $320 million to current and former employees in partial settlement of a long-running class action lawsuit charging that the company’s conversion of its traditional pension plan to a cash-balance plan illegally discriminated against older workers. Under the settlement terms, IBM’s additional liability, which is under consideration by a federal judge, will be […]
As companies compete for talent, housing assistance and free medications head a list of alternatives to traditional benefits. Looking for an employee benefit that will dazzle potential recruits and silence the siren song of competitors trying to steal your stars? Forget about bonuses, or a company car or credit card. The hot ticket in this […]
Many thanks to everyone for taking this month’s survey twice. Your answers were very interesting, especially on the essay question about the most difficult thing your HR department has had to do this year. Many of you have had to deal with layoffs, finding good employees to hire, the rising cost of health care, and […]
Thanks to President Obama’s executive order on revisiting federal regulations, and likely a flood of comments from the employee benefits community, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) is scratching its proposed rule on the definition of fiduciary and will be issuing a revised one in early 2012. In what likely could be considered an understatement, […]
An $850,000 settlement was recently announced between United Airlines and the San Francisco office of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the proceeds of which will be paid out to a class of United’s disabled employees. The settlement resolves a case filed by the EEOC alleging that United’s overtime policies disproportionately denied disabled employees opportunities […]
Earlier this year, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) went into effect. If you are a U.S.-based company, you may be tempted to say, “So what?” But the GDPR’s reach is personal as opposed to geographic. In other words, the GDPR provides protections to individuals, specifically E.U. citizens, no matter where they are […]
By Thora Sigurdson The British Columbia Supreme Court recently awarded damages for mental distress in the context of a termination for cause. The decision in George v. Cowichan Tribes signals that it may be easier to establish such a claim when there is a just cause allegation that fails, compared with terminations without cause. It […]